Testing of Bluetooth® LE and Bluetooth® Classic

Today, classic Bluetooth® is implemented in most mobile phones and laptops to enable wireless headset connectivity or connectivity between mobile phones and other devices for synchronization. Most new cars already offer a Bluetooth® enabled hands-free calling system as standard or optional equipment. Bluetooth® LE with its extremely low power consumption, very fast pairing and worldwide use of the 2.4 GHz band addresses the market for sensors for sports, health and fitness, and also for watches. Bluetooth® LE has already become the dominating technology for all kinds of wearable devices that typically use smart phones as a gateway to the Internet.

Classic Bluetooth

Bluetooth® LE

Basic rate

Extended data rate

Low energy

Spectrum

2.4 GHz ISM band

Modulation

Header: GFSKData: GFSK

Header: GFSKData: π/4-DQPSK or 8DPSK

Header: GFSKData: GFSK

Channels

79

40

Channel spacing

1 MHz

2 MHz

Interference avoidance

Adaptive FHSS(1600 hops/s over max 79 channels)

Adaptive FHSS(1600 hops/s over max 37 channels)

Error detection/correction

FEC

CRC

Advertising

Advertising sequence

3 advertising channels

Network

Scattered pico nets

Pico net

Voice support

Yes

No

Max. data rate

1 Mbit/s

3 Mbit/s

1 Mbit/s

Test requirements according to Bluetooth® SIG

Developers of Bluetooth® enabled devices use ready-to-go chips or modules for easy integration of Bluetooth® connectivity into their device. But each device design is slightly different. There are several factors in the final design, such as antenna design, power supplies, other wireless communications chips or the final housing, that influence the overall communications performance.

Therefore it is absolutely necessary to test each and every Bluetooth® enabled device to verify the required performance and to ensure conformance with Bluetooth® SIG standards and regulatory requirements. Testing of Bluetooth® RF performance and quality can be quite easy. For Bluetooth® LE devices, Bluetooth® SIG has specified a direct test mode to easily control transmitter and receiver tests.

Classic Bluetooth® devices offer a similar functionality for testing by chip-specific (non-standardized) interfaces or by using classic Bluetooth® signaling functionality.

Regulatory test requirements

In addition to standards requirements testing, the devices need to be tested against the regulatory requirements for devices operating in the 2.4 GHz ISM band. This is a result of the popularity of the unlicensed ISM band where Bluetooth®, WLAN/Wi-Fi and ZigBee operate side by side in the same frequency spectrum as ANT+, the LPWAN technology RPMA, baby phones and microwave ovens. The long list of test requirements includes a maximum RF output power of 20 dBm, power spectral density for wideband modulations of less than 10 dBm, a TX sequence duration of less than 10 ms, and a spectrum emission mask for unwanted out-of-band transmitter emissions.

Typical test setup for regulatory conformance testing as supported by the R&S®TS8997

As a result of these conformance tests, it could be necessary to take a deeper look at the whole occupied spectrum to identify problems such as hidden interferers, wrong hopping sequences or faulty carrier sensing that result in poor performance on some interfaces. Analyzing such types of problems requires a detailed view of the whole spectrum of interest in realtime over a defined time interval.

It becomes even more complicated when different wireless technologies are operating in the same device. Integrating several wireless communications technologies in an extremely small device is one of the main challenges for RF designers. Therefore verification of co-existence of different wireless technologies is very important, i.e. how well do the transmitter and receiver of a radio access technology perform in the presence of another technology.

T&M solutions from Rohde & Schwarz

The R&S®CMW wireless communications tester platform supports Bluetooth® up to version 5. It covers the classic Bluetooth® signaling function and all Bluetooth® LE transmitter and receiver tests as specified by Bluetooth® SIG. Some test cases require an additional signal generator such as the R&S®SGS100A RF source. The R&S®CMWrun sequencer software tool eases conformance testing by automatically executing all Bluetooth® SIG test cases. Options for fast and comprehensive production testing of Bluetooth® enabled devices speed up the manufacturing process. Bluetooth® test functions are also available for all major Rohde & Schwarz test instruments, including signal generators and signal analyzers. The test instruments support Bluetooth® as well as other non-cellular standards and all major cellular standards in one box.

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